Changes

News-Medical.net

Changes are always unsettling, even if they’re good changes, because they disrupt our status-quo, cause emotional reactions – good and bad – and require adaptation in our behavior to address the changes.

The past year and a half have made me the poster child for changes. Dealing with them is a work-in-progress.

(1) My husband and I had sudden changes in our health while we lived in Arkansas. I ended up in the ER – a fortunate decision, in that I died twice on Feb. 11th, 2025, with my heart simply stopping. They installed a pacemaker, giving me a second chance at life. The fact that both my husband and I were sick at the same time and unable to take care of each other required us to ask our son, who lives in Thailand, to fly home and help us.

The change in our health required several changes: we had to admit we were in a really compromised position, unable to care for our land on 8 acres, our pets, and our responsibilities that we had carried for almost 40 years. We had to decide to retire and move to Thailand, as our son suggested, so that we could be close to him.

This change required that we sell or give away everything we owned, giving up our identities at the same time, since we had invested so much of ourselves in doing personal things, like creating decorations for our mailbox down at the road, and critters made from scrap metal that were all around our land. I had to give up my shop on Etsy, all my art supplies I had gathered for years. We had to give away a lot of things, then auction off everything else that were the stuff of lives enjoyed together for over 56 years at that point, find new homes for our beloved pets, and face a 24-hour trip from the States to Thailand.

Yes, it was heart-wrenching to do this all in the space of a month’s time while sick. It was a gift, as well. We packed the things for our trip in one suitcase and one backpack each. That was all. Leaving everything else behind also shed the weight of trying to handle things we should probably have given up long before, but hadn’t, due to pride and determination and probably stupidity. We were forced to realize that we had all we really needed in those bags and in the three of us. All else was just ‘stuff.’

(2) We got to Thailand (barely making it through the long trip, even though our son had arranged the best travel possible). Thanks to him, we had the use of of air bnb in the same condo building as our son. It was one room containing a bed, a couple of counters, a table a sink, and a bathroom. We lived there while waiting for our son to finalize a deal on a condo of our own, also in the same building. It was a real change to go from living in a house with 3700 square feet to a one room studio, but it was a chance to learn to keep things super organized so we knew where everything was and weren’t falling over things. We learned to see how beautiful our view was of a brand new country, moving from a town of about 9000 to a city of 1.2 million is no small change! We looked forward to taking very short walks with our son, trying to build our strength while learning a bit about our neighborhood, monitoring each other’s progress and cheering each other on in our efforts to start our new life of retirement.

2 weeks after we made the move, my husband fell in the bathroom and had a stroke. He spent the next month in the hospital and then was transferred to a nursing home, where he remains. Our son and I spent every day at the hospital – 10 hours or so until the nurse we had hired arrived to take over. I still wasn’t over the change of learning that “I” had almost died, and now we were facing two brain surgeries and worry my husband wouldn’t make it. I learned that I have a strength way down inside that I hadn’t had to use since we lost our daughter to SIDS over 45 years ago – that I can make it through anything. We watched him recover from the surgery, other tests, physical therapy, and more for a month before realizing we needed to find a nursing home to help with his recovery. We were lucky to find a place that had competent, caring people close enough that we could visit my husband twice a week while he continued his physical therapy and more

We have since had to face the change that my husband is probably not going to recover. He is very frail, is fed via a nasal tube, and refuses physical therapy adamantly. He is just out of the hospital again for a fever, infection, low blood oxygen and trouble breathing. The nursing home is able to continue the oxygen and the vibration and suction treatments that will hopefully make him comfortable again. The damage to his brain isn’t improving, and, in fact, is getting worse. Much of the time he doesn’t recognize us. We visited yesterday and he called our son ‘Bill,’ his brother’s name. I’m not at all sure he knew who I was, either. I have created what I call a Happy Wall, and I’m bringing paintings I’m doing to try to cheer him up. The change from ‘recovery’ to showing him he is loved, trying to brighten his day, trying to meet him where he is mentally each visit and go from there, sometimes without communication, other than each of us holding a hand and then hugs. This is certainly not the retirement we planned.

(3) I am learning to live by myself for the first time in my life. I am building a life where I create my own happiness, filling it with activities that challenge me and bring me joy. I’m learning new things every day about Thailand, its language (very slowly) and its culture, honoring it every way I can. Since my space and money are limited, I am teaching myself to draw and then painting the sketches. I am relearning to play the guitar and sing, as I haven’t done for over 50 years. I’m enjoying working jigsaw puzzles and leaving them OUT where they aren’t bothering anyone. I am exercising on the treadmill every morning and then doing either yoga stretches or water bottle exercises in the afternoon, trying to improve my health as much as possible. I read, listen to music, and more.

The thing I have learned more than anything is that all changes are difficult. I am learning to see the changes as a CHANCE to improve my life, a chance to look at things from a different prospective, a chance to see what good can come of it. I consciously move from one fun thing to another, finding more and more to learn, to try, to experience, and LOVING it.

Sure some of my life still hurts. But since I can’t change those things, I’m learning to handle things as they come, rather than worrying myself to death over possible scenarios. I’m learning to accept what IS, rather than what I wish it were. The changes in the past year and a half have been character-building – some in ways I really didn’t want to be challenged, but I’m learning how precious life is, how lucky I am to be where I am, close to our son, able to hold my husband’s hand, and find another wonderful thing to do…

CHANGES are CHANCES. Grab them!